Kavieng to Tunnung
16/11/2019 Kavieng, New Ireland, Papua New Guinea
Here we are in Kavieng! We left Kokopo yesterday at about 10am for the approximate 28 hour journey to Kavieng. There was no wind when we left which turned the water to glass. I have to say, I am starting to enjoy no wind sailing. Sure you don’t actually get to sail, but it’s so calm and peaceful you don’t have to worry about anything. A little further into the trip a nice squall showed up behind us bringing enough wind to put up some sails and switch the engines off. After it swung past behind us we were left with 2kts of wind again and sails down.
As the day rolled on we could see big cumulus clouds with huge mushroom tops all around us above the islands. These started to produce a little lightning and Vanja asked at one point if they were coming this way. I said no, they’ll surely stick to the mountains. Wrong. As night fell we were met by a few of these localised storms. One of which had lightning striking so close that we had to shield our eyes when it struck. Thankfully it didn’t last long and we were able to sail a little bit with the wind it produced.
The rest of the night went off without a hitch and by morning we were motor-sailing into a beautiful day. Knowing we had another 5-8 hours to go it went rather slowly. At around 2pm we had a choice to make, travel an extra hour and enter a nice wide clearly marked channel that ships use, or take a shortcut through an unmarked narrow channel during a 30kt squall. Obvious choice really. Even with the squall we made it through without a scratch and motored up the 60m wide river waving at locals along way who had come out in the rain to see us. It was a good choice in the end as we motored into Kavieng about 30 minutes before dark, having to anchor in yet another squall, this one only a relatively benign 25kts. These squalls sure are getting annoying. There is another catamaran here, but I’m not sure whether it is a cruiser or not. It is looking a little disheveled.
20/11/2019 Kavieng, New Ireland, Papua New Guinea
We have been chilling here in Kavieng since Saturday and I have to say it has been really nice. We met another kid boat! They are a German family who have been travelling for 4 years on their boat ZigZag. They have 3 kids, 2, 4 & 6. Family Circus also showed up the other day along with another German boat with a singlehander on it this morning. So here we are in this little known channel in the far Northeast of Papua New Guinea and we are anchored amongst 4 other cruising boats.
We met Scott, from the “disheveled” catamaran. He was robbed about 3 weeks ago in the South East of Bouganville Island. He had a small problem with his spinnaker pole and was sick of the squally conditions on his way from the Solomon Islands to PNG, so he decided to anchor in some bay off Bouganville for a rest and to fix his gear. Some local villagers paddled out to see him and were very nice. They asked him when he was leaving and he told them Sunday. Saturday night at around 11pm he noticed a light on his rear deck. He went out to see what was going on and before he knew it 4 or 5 men were on his boat, one with a gun in his face asking him to show them where everything was. Scott said they calmly went through every nook and cranny of the boat taking everything they could get their hands on, from his laptop computers to his bed sheets and pillow cases. He said they absolutely wiped him out. A pretty shocking story and one that left a very uneasy feeling in our stomachs. Reading about a piracy report online is a totally different experience to meeting a victim first hand and hearing his gruesome story in every detail. He has been travelling this area for 4 years and this is the first time anything bad has happened to him, so I guess the odds are still pretty low, but I don’t like it.
Kavieng is meant to be a snorkel, dive and surf destination, and we have been taking full advantage. We have snorkelled on another WW2 Zero which was in amazing condition. The visibility wasn’t all that great, but if you dove down a few metres you could clearly see the whole plane sitting there on the bottom of the ocean, now a home to many fish and coral species. The coral here has also been very nice. We spent the morning the other day driving 5 miles in the dinghy to get to Ral Island that was supposed to have some very nice coral, and it did. There were a bunch of local guys fishing there when we arrived, but as soon as they saw us they left. Hope it wasn’t something we said.
We finally went to town yesterday to check out the place, and to check in and out with Customs. They require us to check in and out of every port that we visit. Not sure why, but if we’re here we may as well follow the rules. Of course, when we finally got around to doing it, Customs were not home. No sign, no message, just no answer. ZigZag was also trying to checkin to the country as they had just arrived from the Solomons so they needed to do Customs and Quarantine, but George said he’d been waiting at the office for an hour and a half and no one had come in. He told me later that he made a call to the office and arranged an appointment with them the following morning, so that’s what we did today. Well, that and go to the fried chicken place that was recommended by the manager of the resort here.
Chris from Family Circus has a few surfboards onboard, and he invited me to go for a surf with him yesterday arvo. Little did I know that we are anchored just around the corner of one of the best known surf breaks in PNG! I was a little nervous not having ever surfed a reef break before, not to mention my lack of surfing over the past 10 yrs, but once I got out there and saw the break I settled in for what would have to be the best surf of my life. Wave after perfect wave came rolling through and we had it all to ourselves! That is until 5 guys from Byron Bay showed up, delivered on a banana boat by the resort. We had a good chat and an awesome surf with them though, and is now a highlight of the trip for me so far.
25/11/2019 Kavieng, New Ireland, Papua New Guinea
Where does the time go! We’ve been in Kavieng now for over a week I think. It’s time to leave though, our posse is heading West to New Hanover Island, Tunnung Island on the West coast of New Hanover to be exact. We’ve had a nice relaxing time here at Kavieng, but the Northwest monsoon is looming over our heads so we really need to get moving. Not to mention we really would like to get to Raj Ampat for Xmas.
With the exception of filling up with fuel, the last week has been spent surfing, snorkelling and going to town. It’s been great. I now have an ear infection though, probably from all this fun, so I have to stay out of the water for a few days.
Filling up with fuel was quite the adventure. Chris tried organising it with the resort, but for whatever reason couldn’t get enough fuel for all the boats. So we ended up sourcing the fuel ourselves from the local fuel station. George (ZigZag), Phillip (Parotia) and I went to the station in the morning to order 600L of diesel fuel in 3 x 200L drums. There is no dock at the fuel station so we would have to do it via jerry cans. No problem for me and Chris as we only needed to refuel our jerry cans, but poor old George and Phillip, they needed almost a barrel each, so to do that only with jerry cans is a challenge. Within 30 minutes of ordering the fuel it was ready to be picked up at the little beach nearby. They brought the fuel around 1 drum at a time, hand pump included. We then went through the painstaking process of filling all the jerry cans while George and Phillip did laps back to their boats to tip the jerry cans into their respective tanks. By the third barrel we were all pretty tired and about halfway through it a squall came ripping across the anchorage making sure we were all thoroughly soaked. 2 random locals from out of no where came over with their umbrellas and stood over us while we emptied the last drum. It was really nice of them as we would’ve had way more water in our fuel otherwise.
Family Circus left today for New Hanover as they wanted to do the trip as 2 short days, instead of one long one. ZigZag and we are going to leave tomorrow, while Phillip from Parotia will spend one more day here so he can get some beer from the shops. Fair enough.
26/11/2019 Tunnung Island, New Hanover, Papua New Guinea
We had a nice sail today from Kavieng to Tunnung Island off the West coast of New Hanover. The forecast said we should get a little wind from the Northwest and we did, just enough for a bit of motor sailing, allowing us to arrive in daylight. The trip was really nice actually, all day we had clear skies and no swell. The obligatory squall came over us at about 3:30pm which pushed us a little off course with 35kts of wind, but we got back on track and motored into the bay just before sunset. We caught 3 fish on this passage, a Great Barracuda, Skipjack Tuna and some sort of reef fish, maybe a Tuskfish. We threw them all back though as barracudas and skipjack are not good eating, and we didn’t know whether the Tuskfish could be eaten or not. Oh well. Unfortunately, the one lure I have which is catching all the fish is now defunct with most of the squid tentacles missing. It’s the only lure to catch a fish, so not sure what I’m going to do.
Family Circus was already anchored when we arrived as they came in earlier in the day and ZigZag followed us in about 30 minutes later. Its a perfect little anchorage nestled in behind a little reef off a beautiful coconut palm studded island. We had a couple of canoes paddle by offering a few things for sale and for trade. We were a bit tired so asked everyone to come back tomorrow, except for Stephen who traded us a huge pumpkin for some rice.
28/11/2019 Tunnung Island, New Hanover, Papua New Guinea
Tunnung Island has been really nice. We have gotten to know some of the locals here who are super nice and really welcoming. The kids have really enjoyed it too as one of the little villages has a litter of 3 month old puppies that they have been playing with every day.
I went surfing with Chris a couple of times on the various world class surf breaks around the Island. Yesterday we went out in some truly humungous waves, at least 4m faces, probably 5m on the big sets. Needless to say they scared the living crap out of me, so after not too long we moved to a smaller break, but for other reasons was not all that good either. Oh well, seems world class breaks have their problems too. The plan is to get up early tomorrow and go for one more surf before heading out.
Vanja went for a dive with Chris and James from Family Circus yesterday. They dove on a 100m long wreck of a tanker just off the Island. Vanja said it was so cool as you could enter the tanker at one end, swim forever through it’s enormous container, then exit the other end through a door, all the while taking in the various corals and huge fish that called the place home. That does sound cool. My ear was still a bit fragile, so I passed on the offer. Hopefully it won’t be the last.
Meanwhile, today Chris and I helped Paul with his banana boat. He’s a local from the North village who gave up smoking, drinking and chewing a long time ago and is very proud of it. He bought this boat from his sister in 1996 with a bit of damage on the bottom. He paid someone to fix it at some point, but they did such a bad job that as soon as he put it in back the water it was leaking. No problem, with Chris and I he is in good hands, well with Chris anyway. We pooled our fibreglass resources and got to work patching up the botch job. I think we did a pretty good job considering. Unfortunately we won’t be around to see if stopped the leaks, but I’m sure it did.
29/11/2019 En Route to Hermit Islands, Papua New Guinea
Day one of the 3 day trip to the Hermit Islands has been super relaxing. There is absolutely no wind, so we just have the engines chugging along one at a time. I got up early this morning for one more surf with Chris. Glad I did too as it was one to remember. The first wave I caught I came unstuck though and found myself bouncing along the reef on my side. Not a good start. As the tide swung around though the water became deeper and the surf got better and better and we caught wave after wave of perfect 1-2m waves.
When we got back from the surf Chris left asap as he has to go to Manus Island to drop off his Dad. ZigZag and we were not as rushed and left sometime after lunch when the kids got back from saying goodbye to the puppies. We have been in contact with ZigZag along the way so far and I have to say it’s quite comforting to have another boat nearby.
30/11/2019 En Route to Hermit Islands, Papua New Guinea
Day 2 of our trip to Hermits, and there really isn’t much to report. There is zero wind, but because of the typhoons raging just North of the equator we are getting some huge swells rolling under us. It does look incredible in these conditions though, like we are motoring over the rolling hills of some vast blue steppe.
We came upon a pod of dolphins today just lying on the surface of the water. There would have been about 50 of them, babies as well. They were just floating on the surface, not really moving. I thought maybe they were sleeping or resting and as we came closer some of them broke away to come say hi before heading back to the resting place.
After we had our fun with the dolphins we noticed we had 2 sharks tailgating us. It was pretty funny actually, we initially thought they were dolphins and Vanja was down on the step splashing the water saying ‘come here’ and whistling like you do when you want to call a dog over, but then realised they were sharks and quickly came back up the steps. They were just swimming casually behind us, no doubt hoping one of us would fall in.
We did have one minor mishap when the starboard engine started making a weird alarm noise, not a normal one though, it was really high pitched and barely audible. I shut it down only to realise that the salt water pump in that engine room was pumping water straight into the boat! The hose had slipped off causing the thing to run constantly. The alarm must have been because some of the electrics in the engine were under water. There is nothing more scary that finding a quarter of your boat under water! I quickly shut off the pump and closed the seacock and I then got out the old bilge pump to do it’s thing. Within 30 minutes we were back to normal, albeit with no saltwater in the kitchen for washing dishes.
This was a known problem with the pump. The exit hose is 1 size too big for the fitting. It always has been, but ever since I updated it (without realised it was too big) we have had leaks from it. This time I found a piece of the right sized hose and with a few spare fittings I had lying around I managed to rig up a solution which should not leak. All hoses and fittings are now officially the correct size. Fingers crossed.